Well, not entirely. Especially if you take into account that they would have gotten absolutely nothing by letting him walk at season's end. Mench, Nix, F.Cordero, and Julian Cordero aren't a group of guys that will make many fans get excited when they're returned in a deal that sends an All-Star local favorite packing. As a Brewers fan, I feel like they could have gotten more. From a realistic standpoint, I understand and accept that GM Doug Melvin knew how little the chances were of re-signing him in the offseason and he wouldn't have taken this deal if he didn't think it was the best offer out there. The disappointment of losing another star player in Milwaukee is hard to stomach at first, but Lee is medicore defensively and a young, promising club doesn't need to invest five years and $65 million into a 30-year old outfielder.

Guess who is leading all major league catchers in home runs? Nope, not Pudge, Posada, or Victor Martinez. It's Mike Piazza. The same Piazza who was absolutely left for dead in New York last season. He has 16 dingers this year along with 47 RBI. He is hitting .304/.358/.546.

How many fantasy owners picked this guy up off the scrap heap and are now reaping the benefits? At age 37 (soon to be 38), he says he feels better than he has in years. He credits manager Bruce Bochy (the only former catcher for whom Piazza has ever played) for giving him enough time off to stay fresh.

Piazza even wants to play another year. San Diego won't sign off on his $8 million mutual option for 2007, but hasn't ruled out re-signing Piazza at a lower price. With 413 career homers and counting, Piazza will surely be enshrined in Cooperstown someday. Not bad for a 62nd round draft pick. Not bad at all.

Also agree the Yankees should have high expections, but like Pianow suggests, I think there's something to be said about the way they play. Torre seems to run a solid ship over there (he always has) and most guys play with an attitude that it means something to be part of the franchise. Love 'em or hate 'em (and there's a case for both), they seem to pull through more than most teams. What I'm saying is, give the Dodgers or Cubs $200 million and I'm very sure they'd find a way to NOT win eight straight division titles. Again, even if you can't stand them, guys like Jeter and Posada and Bernie are underrated in this regard.

Okay, so voting has started in MLB stadiums for the Hometown Heroes. My brother and I spent the bulk of the early innings of Wednesday's Texas/New York game coming up with guys that ALMOST made the ballot for their respective teams:

By sweeping the White Sox and climbing into a virtual tie for the Wild Card, the Twins have set a franchise record for the best 42-game stretch. The Twins are 34-8 since June 8.

But do they need to add more talent to ensure they make the playoffs and make a run at the World Series? Jim Souhan of the Minneapolis Star Tribune argues that the best move is to not make a deal. He makes good points that most of the World Series teams the past few years didn't make a big deadline deal. Last year seems to be the one year the White Sox didn't make a big deadline trade, for example.

But one rumor has the Twins acquiring Carlos Lee and for pitching prospects Kevin Slowley and Glen Perkins. (The source is sketchy at best, so this is just good food for thought).

I don't think the Twins would give up two prospects for a rent-a-player, because they wouldn't sign him after this year. It would be very unlike Gm Terry Ryan. He's never made a big trade like that. But maybe he thinks this is the year.

On the other hand, the Twins would get a first-round draft pick once Lee doesn't re-sign .. so maybe 1st round pick - (Perkins + Slowey) isn't seen as that big a cost.

Either way, it's my opinion that the top of the Twins rotation and bullpen gives the Twins an excellent chance to win it all this season. Maybe better than at any point when they won three consecutive AL titles. The farm system is deep and it may be time to go for it. Even by trading some top prospects, the Twins won't mortgage their future as most of their core is young and signed for several more years. Don't overpay a lot, but if you can acquire an impact player like Lee at that price - the time is now.

Good article today on Slate about how the baseball card industry fell apart.

It's interesting that so many people got heavily into baseball in part because of the cards, and losing that probably hurts baseball's marketing a lot, especially among the next generation of fans. I suppose that's what we're here for, but fantasy baseball isn't for kids under 10 the way the cards are. Maybe that's why the MLBAM is trying to extort money from the fantasy industry.

It's also too bad for the kids - one of my fondest memories as a kid was seeing my Dad bring home an entire box of wax packs, and spending all afternoon opening them and asking which players were good. I also remember going to a card show when I was eight, and buying what I thought were the Tom Seaver and Pete Rose rookie cards (they were actually their first year cards with the big cup on the front) for $10 ($6 for Rose, $4 for Seaver). There's some point at which you realize cards existed before you started collecting, some even before you were born, and they had much more value than the ones you had. And it was really cool to see the Aarons and Mantles and Mayses and Ruths that the high-end card dealers carried.

Mariners GM Bill Bavasi has had a tough year with some bad moves, most notably the signing of Carl Automatic-Out Everett. But he really improved the team's prospects by trading for Ben Boussard after earlier trading for Eduardo Perez. The two will platoon at DH, which means the Mariners are replacing this:

LHB: .186/.269/.286
RHB: .240/.306/.382

with this:

LHB: .330/.361/.680
RHB: .362/.395/.587

If the A's trade Zito and the Angels don't get Soriano, the Mariners, who are only three games out, suddenly become a serious player in the division. (Not that their starting pitching is good enough to carry them in the playoffs.)

Alex Rodriguez is one of the most talked about people in all of baseball. While he consistently puts up nice numbers, most of the chatter surrounds his ridiculous paycheck and failures on the field. Of all the non-steroid suspected players, no one is viewed more negatively than A-Rod.

It’s entirely possible Rodriguez brought most of this onto himself. Not just by signing a $252 million contract, but also by the way he carries himself. Constantly worried about what others think, no beat writer has ever left an A-Rod interview thinking they received anything other than PC answers. While it’s difficult to ever truly know an athlete, Rodriguez is so self-conscious it has created the exact opposite effect he originally intended. The perfect guy act eventually grew old.

A-Rod the baseball player, just like his personality, is an enigma. He’s the youngest player in the history of the game to reach 450 homers – the youngest by nearly an entire year by the way. The 450th homer was also his 2,000th career hit already. He’s won two MVP awards, including last year, when he led the AL in homers, runs, slugging and OPS. He was second in batting average and OBP and fourth in RBI. He's durable and has led the AL in homers four times in five years. Rodriguez also hit more home runs in a season than any previous Yankee right-handed hitter, supplanting Joe DiMaggio and Gary Sheffield.

Sure, the guy can hit, and no one disputes that. It’s when he gets his hits is the problem. A-Rod is viewed as one of the most unclutch hitters out there, and everyone’s heard this. I won’t argue whether “clutch” even truly exists, after all, is a run in the first inning worth less than a run in the ninth? I will, however, argue against A-Rod’s apparent inability to hit when it matters most. He’s driven in 72 RBI in 96 games this season. Two-thirds of his 21 homers have come with runners on base. He’s batting .296 with nine homers in 115 at-bats with RISP. His OPS is .987 with RISP and .807 with the bases empty.

Admittedly, those numbers were reversed last year, but are remarkably similar for his career (.943 OPS with bases empty vs. .951 OPS with RISP). Rodriguez's weak reputation in the clutch was fueled last year by his 2-for-15 performance in the ALDS against the Angels. Still, Rodriguez has hit .305/.393/.534 with six homers in 31 career postseason games. He almost single-handedly led the Yankees over the Twins in the 2004 ALDS, batting .421 and slugging .737.

Derek Jeter, comparatively speaking, has an .824 OPS with RISP and an .856 OPS with the bases empty for his career. Mr. Clutch himself, David Ortiz, also sees his career OPS fall 35 points when there are RISP. As of last week, Ortiz had the most RBI opportunities in baseball, having batted with 347 runners on base, and he'd only knocked in 16.7 percent of them. That's not even among the top-30 for hitters with at least 200 plate appearances.

Rodriguez has been more susceptible than his teammates to criticism because he has never played for a championship team. While I can throw good RISP stats at you, I cannot prove that his hits come in the later innings more than most, which people seem to hold in great account.

Recently, he’s been better known as E-Rod, as he committed five errors in a five-game span last week and led the American League with 18 going into Monday. Not much I can argue here, but it is ironic, considering defense was the main reason he took the MVP trophy from Big Papi last year. As for his huge salary, Yankee fans should probably look elsewhere to complain, given that they're paying him just $15 million a year - Texas picks up the rest of his salary - he's a relative bargain in Yankee-land. In fact, A-Rod is only the fourth-highest paid Yankee.

Bottom line, A-Rod doesn’t deserve nearly the criticism he receives. Once someone gets a reputation, it often follows him forever. In A-Rod’s case, his is both unfounded and false. While he may be fun to root against, there's no denying his ability to rake.

Great bulletin board fodder from Javy Lopez in The Baltimore Sun after the Orioles blew a 4-0 lead against the Royals on July 25... if the Orioles or the Royals were contending. Seriously Javy, you have no right to call your team "superior" when you're 45-56:

"It's pretty frustrating, seeing the way we started," Lopez said. "I thought it was going to be a pretty easy win from what happened in the beginning. That is a team that has lost I don't know how many games. We feel way superior to them. It's a game that we shouldn't have lost."

A's GM Billy Beane continues to insist that he would trade Barry Zito for Lastings Milledge. The question for Mets and baseball fans: is this a trade you would make if you are GM Omar Minaya? While Zito has not pitched as well as he did during his Cy Young season of 2002 or even 2003, he is a clear upgrade over Steve Trachsel as the team's #3 starter and gives the Mets some youth at the front of their rotation, which is currently manned by Pedro Martinez, who is 34, and Tom Glavine, who is 40. The downside is that Zito is a free agent at the end of the year and is represented by Scott Boras, but even if you don't re-sign him, by obtaining him, you would be entitled to the two supplemental picks in next year's draft when he signs elsewhere.

Conversely, Cliff Floyd is a free agent at the end of the season and Milledge was expected to replace him in left field. If Milledge is dealt, the free agent OF market is not that strong in 2007, unless you can find a way to sign Alfonso Soriano. The next best position player in the Mets farm system is Carlos Gomez, who is just 20 and won't be ready for the majors until 2008 at the earliest. This might mean a stop-gap option, another prospect trade for a hitter or re-signing Floyd for 2007 to man LF.

So do you go for it, thinking this is a once in a decade chance, or stand pat and hope El Duque can recapture his playoff magic of years past and Pedro is healthy for the postseason?

My biggest problem with this situation is that the whole incident started when Vicente Padilla hit Alex Cintron with no outs and the lead-off runner on first. I couldn't quite figure out why anyone would intentionally hit a batter in this situation. For me, it raises the question: How long before the White Sox clubhouse simply implodes? The first time Ozzie got in the face of Sean Tracy, a 25-year old rookie who failed to deliver the conventional retaliatory beanball. On Sunday, it was Jon Garland, a big part of last season's World Series title. Will the team ever just decided that "enough is enough" and show Ozzie the door?